by (Peru, Neb.)—The Peru State women’s basketball fell to Grand View 54-49 on Wednesday night despite a valiant effort defensively. The Bobcats fall to 7-14 overall and 3-12 in Heart of America Athletic Conference play while the Vikings improve to 17-4 overall and 13-2 in conference play.
It was tough sledding for both teams offensively all night especially in the first quarter as the Bobcats held on to a slim 4-0 lead after a jumper from Sam Stewart (Mount Ayr, Iowa). Grand View then went on a 7-0 run to take a three point 7-4 lead with under four minutes to play in the first.
Jescenia Mosley (Shenandoah, Iowa) knocked in a triple to tie the game at seven apiece towards the tail end of the first. The Bobcats and the Vikings would head into quarter two deadlocked at 7-7.
Peru Stat got out to a three point lead right away in the second after a free throw from Maddy Duncan (Hamburg, Iowa) and a jumper from Mosley as they lead 10-7 after one minute of play in the second.
Grand View then would go on a 10-0 run to take a 17-10 lead with six minutes to play in the half. Natasha Deal(Winnebago) would stop the run after a layup and sparked a 8-2 run as the Bobcats would get within one after a layup from Stewart trailing 19-18.
The Vikings stretched its lead back out to four with a minute to go before the break. Hailey Ingram(Omaha) hit a layup with under a minute to play as the Bobcats went into halftime down two 23-21.
Stewart tied the game at 23 all right out of the halftime break after a layup. The Bobcats and the Vikings would trade the lead back-and-forth a couple times before Grand View went on a run.
Grand View went on a 11-0 run holding the Bobcats scoreless for six minutes in the third quarter before Deal would break the run with a layup of her own as Peru State trailed 35-27.
A technical foul helped the Vikings lead get pushed out to 11 right before the end of third quarter.
The Bobcats would score only three more points in the third quarter as they trailed by 11 41-30 going into the final quarter of play.
In the first five minutes of the fourth quarter neither team could get much going offensively as Grand View held a 45-32 lead with six and a half minutes to play in the game.
The Bobcats then went on an 8-0 run to cut the Vikings deficit to five. Contributing to the run was a layup by Olivia Williams(Minneapolis, Minn.), a free throw by Deal, a three by Deal and free throws by Duncan.
Grand View then hit a three to go back up eight with three and a half minutes to play. Peru State stormed back with a 5-0 run capped off by a Deal three-pointer. Peru State now trailed 48-45 with two minutes remaining.
Unfortunately, that is as close as Peru State would get as they only would score four more points in the game and fell to the Vikings 54-49.
Peru State shot 19-of-53 from the field shooting 35.8%, 3-15 from beyond the arc shooting 20% and 8-of-14 from the free throw line shooting 57.1%.
Grand View shot 17-of-46 from the field shooting 37%, 5-of-19 from deep shooting 26.3% and 15-of-22 from the charity stripe 68.2%.
Peru State outscored Grand View 26-16 in points in the paint, Grand View outscored Peru State 25-20 in points off turnovers and Peru State outscored Grand View 23-17 in bench points.
Deal led all scorers with 19 points, Stewart finished with 10, Duncan and Mosley each finished with five. Stewart led the team in rebounds with eight and Danielle Howard(Uniontown, Kan.)
had a team high two assists.
